Footprints of Londonhttp://footprintsoflondon.com
Where Londoners WalkTue, 26 Sep 2017 19:02:21 +0100en-GBhourly1Scrooge’s Lonely Roomshttp://footprintsoflondon.com/2017/09/scrooges-lonely-rooms/
http://footprintsoflondon.com/2017/09/scrooges-lonely-rooms/#respondTue, 26 Sep 2017 19:02:21 +0000http://footprintsoflondon.com/?p=6133David Charnick explores how Charles Dickens exploited the peculiarities of office space provision in Victorian London to emphasise Ebenezer Scrooge’s sense of loneliness and isolation. David will be running his Dickens of a City walk as part of Literary Footprints 2017, dates and booking details on his walks page.

It was with great astonishment, and with a strange, inexplicable dread, that as he looked, he saw this bell begin to swing. It swung so softly in the outset that it scarcely made a sound; but soon it rang out loudly, and so did every bell in the house. This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, but it seemed an hour. The bells ceased as they had begun, together. They were succeeded by a clanking noise, deep down below; as if some person were dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the wine-merchant’s cellar.

This is the beginning of a horrific Christmas Eve for Ebenezer Scrooge, but so familiar are we with A Christmas Carol that it has lost a lot of its effect. Perhaps this is because we no longer appreciate how lonely Scrooge’s rooms are in that dark and completely empty house. When the bell starts to ring, Scrooge knows that there is no-one in the house: his are the only rooms not turned into offices. Who is ringing the bell?

Possibly one reason we can’t appreciate Scrooge’s loneliness fully is that we’re used to office blocks. We’ve all grown up with them, and we think of business taking place in specifically-designed, usually open plan, offices. But before 1864, this wasn’t the case. Though some companies erected blocks for their own uses – such as the phenomenal East India Company – smaller businesses took rooms in domestic houses as counting houses. This was to change though with the establishment in 1864 of two companies.

These were the City Offices Company Ltd and the City of London Real Property Company Ltd, which initiated the speculative development of office buildings. For the first time, office buildings were erected to be rented out to tenants. The headquarters of the City Offices Company survives still, at 35 Gracechurch Street, on the corner with Lombard Street. Over its main entrance on Lombard Street is a bold representation of the head of Mercury, messenger of the gods and the Roman god of commerce and profitable trade. This statement of commercial confidence was however misplaced.

The City Offices Company was floated by the Mercantile Credit Association Ltd in conjunction with the French bank Credit Mobilier. It concentrated on acquiring ‘prime sites’, principally around the Bank of England, promising investors that profits would accrue because of the scarcity of sites so close to the financial centre. But a sluggish commercial scene and an increasing supply of office space elsewhere affected the company’s profits. In 1867 shares were giving a return of 4%, instead of the estimated 15-20%. In 1889, after thirty-five years’ trading, the value of the company’s profits was decreasing rather than increasing.

It was the choice of area which undermined the City Offices Company. After all, the City’s stock of office buildings increased hugely in the late C19. Moreover, the installation of hydraulic lifts made taller buildings desirable: previously the upper floors attracted poor rents. In 1873, the City Offices Company installed a hydraulic lift in the four-story Palmerston Buildings at 51-55 Broad Street (completed in 1867). From 1882 the London Hydraulic Power Company made hydraulic lifts more available to a wide variety of customers, installing 221 passenger lifts in the City by 1895, as well as 114 goods lifts and cranes.

The abundance of office blocks caused rents to stay low; profits came from anticipating development beyond the traditional area. Office buildings are more self-contained and less dependent on location, and this allowed for expansion. So the City of London Real Property Company looked eastwards for its sites. The Company was floated by brothers James and John Innes, rum importers, whose Jamaican plantations had been affected by the abolition of the slave trade. The brothers acquired property in Mark Lane and Mincing Lane, an area dealing with the provisions trade; they increased their portfolio, and their profits.

When A Christmas Carol was published in 1843, all this growth was over two decades away. Admittedly some businesses had created their own office blocks. For instance, in 1726 the East India Company began rebuilding the Elizabethan Craven House as East India House. In 1732 work began on the Bank of England’s first premises, purportedly the first purpose-built bank in Britain. Other ventures followed, including the Stock Exchange at Capel Court and the Post Office in St Martin’s le Grand. But these were not speculations. The only speculative office block built before 1864 was erected circa 1823 by Annesley Voysey, at the Lombard Street end of Clements Lane.

When Scrooge let himself into his lonely house (which Dickens describes as being down a lonely court and so out of place that it looked as if it had got lost there while playing hide-and-seek with other houses), most business was still

being carried out in coffee houses, counting houses and merchants’ homes. Aside from Scrooge’s pair of rooms, all the other rooms in the house are counting houses, none of which are occupied on that dark evening on Christmas Eve.

So, when all the bells ring out in the house with no-one to activate them, and then cease suddenly to be replaced by the sinister sound of a clanking chain dragged from the cellar up the stairs to Scrooge’s very door, it is his isolation which adds to the horror of the moment. And when the deceased business partner – who has been on Scrooge’s mind throughout the day – actually walks through his door, even the weak fire in the grate reacts: ‘the dying flame leaped up, as though it cried ‘I know him! Marley’s Ghost!’ and fell again’.

Only when we are able to set aside our familiarity with this tale, and are able to approach it as it was written, will we feel the chill that entered Scrooge’s soul on seeing Marley’s Ghost in that dark and lonely room.

]]>http://footprintsoflondon.com/2017/09/scrooges-lonely-rooms/feed/0Open House – Leadenhall Markethttp://footprintsoflondon.com/2017/09/open-house-leadenhall-market/
http://footprintsoflondon.com/2017/09/open-house-leadenhall-market/#respondSat, 23 Sep 2017 15:40:57 +0000http://footprintsoflondon.com/?p=6121Over London Open House weekend Tina Baxter and her friend Gina led walks around one of the City of London’s finest buildings – Leadenhall Market

The iconic Leadenhall Market built by Sir Horace Jones in 1881 is a jewel in the City of London’s private tenanted portfolio. Thursday’s it is crammed with city types enjoying ‘Thursday is the new Friday’ at the pubs, bar and restaurants. During the week it is a convenient walk through from one City street to another and has been for centuries.

During Open House weekend it is perfect cross roads to link modern day icons with the Victorian. Easy access to Leadenhall Street to the ‘Cheesegrater’ and the Gherkin, also to Fenchurch Street to the ‘Walkie Talkie’, Monument and Lloyd’s Registry as well as Lloyds of London (sadly not open this year).

The credentials of Leadenhall as a market place go back at least 1500 years, it was built on the site of the Roman Forum and Basilica, remains of which can still be found under the hairdressers, Nicholson & Griffin, not open at the weekends, but welcome visitors during the week. The medieval period, which we know is long, introduced Richard Whittington, Simon Ayers (both Mayors of the City of London) and the footprint of master mason John Croxton’s version of a market, with church, school and granary. Including fortifications to keep out the rabble during times of rationing and famine. Of course, the name of the site comes from a mansion owned by Sir Hugh Neville recorded in 1309, which had a lead roof, hence the naming, who for reasons not known opened his gardens and orchards to ‘foreigners’ to sell their wares, meat, fish and herbs. These folk were not from overseas, they were not Freemen of the City so had to seek special permits to trade. Finally the site was made officially the site for ‘out of towners’ to sell all manner of goods.

There are many other stories to tell ancient and modern, the runaway gander and of course the connection with Harry Potter and other films. We had a great day guiding, staring with 12 people at 10am, and ending up doing walks on the hour up to 2pm, the last walk on Saturday we ended up with 60+! The groups were wonderful, avid listeners who soaked up the history and stories with relish!

There is a plan in progress with the regeneration company involved with Leadenhall to arrange regular walks with the City of London guides during November and December and to continue into 2018. For the time being a couple of dates to note:

]]>http://footprintsoflondon.com/2017/09/open-house-leadenhall-market/feed/0Huntsman and The Kingsmanhttp://footprintsoflondon.com/2017/09/huntsman-and-the-kingsman/
http://footprintsoflondon.com/2017/09/huntsman-and-the-kingsman/#respondTue, 19 Sep 2017 07:05:28 +0000http://footprintsoflondon.com/?p=6110Michael Duncan talks about the role Huntsman of Savile Row plays in the new film Kingsman 2: The Golden Circle You can find out more on Michael’s walk “In Search of the real Kingsman – Spies and suits of Savile Row”

Huntsman is one of the great shops of Savile Row.

In its time it has clothed the likes of Clark Gable, Ronald Reagan, Paul Newman and the great Gregory Peck went to Huntsman for fifty years.

But it has also clad notable women including Hollywood legends Katherine Hepburn, Marlene Dietrich and Elizabeth Taylor (and her often less legendary husbands).

And more recently it made the white tie ensemble for Lord Grantham in Downton Abbey.

Through its doors in 1989 stepped a young chap who had just finished at Stowe School. His mother thought Huntsman would be the prefect place to get his first bespoke suit, to release him into the adult world properly dressed to face its many challenges.

Flash forward to 2014 and that same young man, Matthew Vaughn is a successful film maker with an impressive C.V. who has just released what was to be his biggest grossing movie to date; Kingsman: the Secret Service.

Kingsman is based on a comic book series originally called merely “The Secret Service”. Vaughn was inspired by the comics but wanted to give it something extra, so he turned to his favourite tailors “Huntsman” to give it a classy disguise. “Huntsman” has a starring role in the movie, acting as Kingsman’s head office as well as a secret entrance via one of its changing rooms to a network of tunnels which lead ultimately to a country home stuffed full of the usual gadgets and weaponry you’d expect to find at any self-respecting spy organisation.

The film tells the story of the recruitment of a London lad called Gary “Eggsy” Unwin (Taron Eggerton) into a spy organisation. He meets a lot of resistance from his fellow candidates who view him as a “chav”, but he wins through to take on and defeat an evil power-crazed billionaire called Richmond Valentine played by Samuel L Jackson.

It’s fantastically produced, has great performances, is utterly ludicrous and brilliant fun.

Now Kingsman 2: The Golden Circle is hitting the screens and the beloved Huntsman, surely one of the world’s most beautiful shops, appears to suffer a terrible fate!

In contrast to the drama of the film, Huntsman is thankfully still there.

Stepping inside it feels like a place where nothing can go wrong. There is a gentle ringing of the bell as you enter. Ahead of you are comfortable sofas and a fireplace framed by two stags heads.

They were left for safekeeping by a customer in 1921 before he headed off for what has always been thought of as a particularly good lunch. He never returned.

But I wonder if Matthew Vaughn wasn’t onto something when he cast Huntsman as the front of his secret service? Could our mystery customer have been whisked away through one of Huntsman’s changing rooms into its underground network of tunnels. Or perhaps he took on one mission too many. We’ll never know. But in the world of The Kingsman, stranger things have happened.

]]>http://footprintsoflondon.com/2017/09/huntsman-and-the-kingsman/feed/0The Queen and the Greenhttp://footprintsoflondon.com/2017/06/the-queen-and-the-green/
Thu, 15 Jun 2017 10:52:03 +0000http://footprintsoflondon.com/?p=6036Dave Charnick recalls how a royal intervention helped stem the spread of deadly disease in Victorian Bethnal Green. You can hear more stories from this most fascinating of London locales on Dave’s walk The Battle for Bethnal Green this Saturday (17th June) at 2.30 pm. Booking details are here.

On Pollard Row in Bethnal Green a rather elaborate building can be found for such a small road. Built in a lavish Renaissance style, decorated with carved fruits and flowers, it has a highly decorative clock tower which features, amongst other details, a bust of a woman. The inscription above her head enlightens you: the lady is the Dowager Queen Adelaide, and this is the (former) Queen Adelaide’s Dispensary. Built by Lee and Long, a firm who specialised in medical and hospital buildings, the Dispensary (i.e. hospital) opened on this site in 1866, and was a response to the ravages of cholera on Bethnal Green.

In 1831, cholera reached England; by 1832 it arrived in London. A bacterial infection spread by infected water, cholera found itself at home in London, with its increasing population density and lack of sanitation. Bethnal Green was one of many parishes racked by outbreaks of cholera, with profiteering landlords packing families into single rooms and keeping their sacred profit margins uncompromised by installing luxuries like drainage.

During the cholera years, the connection between disease and bad sanitation was clear. In 1841 it was noted that poorly drained houses in parts of Bethnal Green were sometimes flooded to a depth of two feet. Cesspools were seldom cleared, and one open privy might serve fifty people. In 1848 physician and health inspector Hector Gavin published his Sanitary Ramblings, a damning house-to-house survey of Bethnal Green. At that time only 9% of streets and courts in Bethnal Green were listed as having sewers. Though the 1848 Public Health Act made house drainage into sewers compulsory, in 1850 only twelve houses were recorded as being connected to a sewer laid between Pollard Row and Shoreditch Church, a distance of around a mile.

Attempts to clean the area of ‘nuisances’ such as dung hills predate the arrival of cholera, with a woman searcher appointed as early as 1749 to search for ‘nuisances’. In November 1832 the local medical board was actively clearing ‘nuisances’, the breeding ground of cholera. In 1848 an immense dunghill was blamed for a death from cholera at a sweep’s house on the north side of the parish, by the Regent’s Canal. The filth along the banks of the canal, condemned by thirteen local doctors but not cleared away, was the alleged cause of typhus, scarlatina and other fevers.

Cholera ravaged the East End from 1832 onwards. Bethnal Green suffered severe outbreaks in 1837 and 1838; by 1839 the average age of death in the parish was 25.8 years, with more than a quarter of deaths arising from epidemic disease. Young children were the principle victims. But when the epidemic of 1849 swept grimly across the East End, it killed 752 people in Bethnal Green; in 16 days 211 died of cholera in the notorious Nichol slum on the edge of the parish. The death rate was 90 per 10,000 inhabitants – in 1832-3 the rate was 50 per 10,000.

Despite this situation the vestry, the local government of the day, refused to establish a hospital, relying instead on sick visiting by the surgeon and apothecary from the workhouse. In 1831 Frederick Agar, the workhouse surgeon and apothecary since at least 1812, included in his claim for a salary increase a reminder that in 1830 he had 2,000 tickets to attend the outdoor sick besides those in the workhouse, and that he had to buy the drugs himself.

During cholera outbreaks, two ‘fever wards’ in the workhouse received some cases from the parish at large. Other patients were given such aid at home as was possible. In 1832 the vestry was granted £2,000 by the government for a cholera hospital. It spent the money on healthcare seemingly, but the hospital was not built.

The 1849 epidemic was to prove a turning point however. In that year the Dowager Queen Adelaide, widow of William IV and aunt of Queen Victoria, was drawing towards death, dying on 2 December 1849. Having undergone four pregnancies which resulted in no surviving children, it was clear that she would not produce an heir to the throne. However, she was a popular queen who bestowed much of her income on charitable causes. On her death she left a number of bequests, including £100 to the parish of Bethnal Green to found a cholera dispensary.

There seems to have been some difficulty in establishing the dispensary, but it opened in 1850 on Warner Place, just to the north of the surviving building. By 1865 though it was clear that a larger building was required and on 23 June the Reverend Edward Coke and eight others began raising funds. Coke had been vicar of the nearby church of St James the Great since 1852. He was a controversial man, offering free marriages to locals to address the issue of cohabitation. Such were his disagreements with the church authorities that they refused to provide a curate to assist him. Typically, the can-do Coke responded by advertising for donations to raise £2,000 to pay for a curate.

The new Dispensary building, costing £7,000, opened in 1866, just in time to meet another epidemic of cholera. While not as severe as the 1849 epidemic, still it resulted in a death rate of 60.4 per 10,000 of population. Out of 3,824 deaths in the parish that year, 614 were from cholera, over 16%. Such was the situation that by 1868 the Reverend Coke was again seeking funds to help fight disease. The significant result of the 1866 outbreak however was an increase in local healthcare, though still not from the vestry, which did not begin thinking about creating a hospital until 1889, and took eleven years to do so.

In 1866 the vicar of St Philip’s, whose parish included the Nichol slum, appealed for help from the Islington-based Mildmay Deaconesses. This appeal led in due course to the establishment of the Mildmay Mission Hospital, at first in a slum cottage then, via a disused warehouse, in purpose-built premises in 1892. In 1988 it became a specialist HIV/AIDS hospice and, as The Mildmay, it still carries out this valuable work.

In 1867 two Quaker sisters, Mary Elizabeth and Ellen Phillips, rented a house near the Nichol, in Virginia Row, as a dispensary for women and children. Moving to much larger premises on Hackney Road it underwent a number of developments until in 1942 it was amalgamated with the Princess Elizabeth of York Children’s hospital from Shadwell and became the Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children. Sadly this is now defunct, its function having been absorbed by the new version of the Royal London Hospital, and the Hackney Road building has become a hotel.

Queen Adelaide’s Dispensary itself, with the retreat of cholera before improvements in public health and sanitation, developed into a general hospital. In 1889 it is recorded as dealing with 6,656 medical and surgical cases and 3,248 dental cases. It only ceased to function as a hospital in 1961 when it became the Queen Adelaide’s Charity. The Dispensary became a nurses’ home for the Queen Elizabeth Children’s Hospital in the 1970s, and was converted into flats in the 1990s, but the Charity still functions, providing grants to help the sick poor of Bethnal Green.

Nearly three years ago we exhorted our dear readers and followers to support a kickstarter project to produce a film that promised a new and unique view of the city we all know and love.

We were delighted when the project hit its funding target, and after nearly three years of filming, editing, and composing (it has its own original score), it will have its London première at The Barbican Centre on Sunday 3rd September (you can purchase tickets here).

It promises to be a wonderful evening; not only will you be among the first to witness this unique new take on London’s ongoing story, but also the original score will be performed by a live orchestra and following the screening there will be an open discussion (featuring our own Mark Rowland on the panel).

It’s a project we have been proud to support and we eagerly await seeing the result of the London Symphony team’s labours (you can see a trailer on the London Symphony homepage).

In the meantime, Mark recently caught up for a chat with Alex Barrett, director, editor and driving force behind the project so he could give us a little taster of what to expect.

MR: Three years in the making Alex, clearly a huge amount of work has gone into it! How do you feel now it’s finally made?

AB: I’m definitely relieved to have it finished, but mostly I’m just excited to finally be able to share it with people.

MR: What was the main inspiration behind the making of the film?

AB: I’ve long been a fan of the original city symphonies from the 1920s, such as Man with a Movie Camera and Berlin: Symphony of a Great City. In 2009, I made a short cine-poem, Hungerford: Symphony of a London Bridge, as a tribute to those films.

The short film focused solely upon Hungerford Bridge and the Golden Jubilee Footbridges, and I later thought that it might be interesting to make a feature-length version looking at the whole of London. The idea was to explore life in a modern city, and to look at the way modernity is affecting the landscape of historic London. I also felt that, in a time of divisive politics, I wanted to make something that celebrated the cosmopolitan nature of the city and the diversity found within it.

MR: What were your overall expectations for the look, feel and theme of the film before you started filming and to what extent did they change over the course of filming and editing?

AB: As with Hungerford: Symphony of a London Bridge, we set out to make something that paid tribute to the filmmakers and film style of the 1920s, but without falling into pastiche or parody. I looked a lot at those films, and also at Russian constructivist photography and design, and developed a style guide for the film – but, as the shoot progressed, I think my team and I started thinking less about the style guide and more about how we would naturally frame and respond to our surroundings.

So, really, the films of the 20s were our starting point, but slowly it become more about reinterpreting the form of those films and responding directly to the locations around us.

MR: We guides know that being out and about in London is always full of surprises, what surprises did London have in store for you while you were out and about filming?

AB: I think, in some ways, the most surprising thing about working on the project was the way that it opened my eyes to the beauty of the city. As a life-long Londoner I knew the city well, but I knew it in the way that one knows familiar surroundings – head down and hurrying through. But working on the project made me look and see things that I’d never seen before (both literally and metaphorically) and discover new facets of the city.

I’d love for audiences to have a similar response to the final film. I’ve already heard of people who have seen it seeking out and visiting locations from the film that they’d never previously heard of. Which, to me, is wonderful – and exactly the kind of response I was hoping for.

MR: What are your hopes for the film? In particular, where would you like to see it screened?

AB: My biggest hope is that people see it! And, of course, that they enjoy it! Making a film is only half the battle – and getting people motivated enough to come along and actually see it is an even bigger challenge. A film like London Symphony really needs people to come out and support it, so I’m hoping that the community nature of the project will appeal to people and encourage them to make the effort.

In terms of screenings, I’m delighted to be launching it at the Barbican, which is already a dream venue. And we also have a number of other equally exciting venues lined up for the release, which we’ll be announcing later this summer. They include cinemas and alternative spaces such as a Buddhist mediation centre and a Hindu temple. I’d definitely like to continue to arrange screenings in community spaces like that, as they really represent the heart of what the film is about.

MR: And what next for Alex Barrett?

AB: Good question! I’m not quite out of the woods with London Symphony yet, but I do have several new projects which I’m slowly chipping away it. It’s a bit too soon to tell what will be next, but I’ve been co-writing a script with the Bulgarian filmmaker Andrey Paounov, which will hopefully shoot next year. It’s based on a play called January by Yordan Radichkov – and it’s something very different from London Symphony!

London Symphony has its London premiere at the Barbican Centre on Sunday 3rd September, tickets available to purchase here. If you know of (or would like to suggest) an opportunity to screen the film, *protected email*.

]]>Henry VIII’s Crisis of Supremacyhttp://footprintsoflondon.com/2017/06/henry-viiis-crisis-of-supremacy/
Fri, 02 Jun 2017 18:19:28 +0000http://footprintsoflondon.com/?p=6003As part of our Mandate to Rule series of political-themed walks in the lead-up to polling day, Dave Charnick’s walk The Price of Conscience on Thursday 8th Junewill tackle the thorny issue of where your conscience could lead you during Henry VIII’s reign. Booking details are here, meanwhile Dave highlights the perils of charting the tricky political waters of the day.

As we in the United Kingdom approach the crucial period when we must negotiate our way out of the European Union, we might like to think back nearly five hundred years. At that point England was not so much negotiating its way out of Europe as ripping itself free.

The process began in August 1529 when a certain Cambridge don called Thomas Cranmer suggested that Henry VIII give himself an annulment of his marriage to his older brother’s widow. After all, Henry was king of England: why should he wait on the Pope for an annulment which would never come?

After the collapse of the 1529 Council of Blackfriars, which triggered the fall of his right-hand man Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, it was clear that Henry needed a change of tack. This change would lead to his installation in 1534 as Supreme Head of the English Church. Over the following years the process worked itself out, costing a number of lives along the way, but it is in 1538 that things come to a head.

Part of the crackdown of 1538 is the arrest in May of John Stokesley, Bishop of London, at Syon Abbey, near Isleworth in Middlesex for promoting the Pope’s authority. Though a staunch supporter of the Supremacy when he took over the See in 1530, Stokesley changed his mind in 1534 when he discovered how interested Anne Boleyn was in church reform. Now, acknowledging his guilt and begging for mercy, the Bishop is allowed to resume his See, the crackdown being aimed at Syon Abbey itself.

Also in May 1538 occurs one of the curious moments of the Supremacy, when a Franciscan friar by the name of John Forest is dragged to Smithfield to earn the dubious distinction of being the only Catholic martyr to be burned to death.

This is the death of the heretic: Catholics who resist the Supremacy are condemned as traitors, and so are usually hanged, drawn and quartered. However, Forest is not burned at the stake – he is hung in chains over a fire and roasted to death.

It would seem that this is a new departure – to submit a Catholic to the death of the heretic appears to make the statement that to resist the place of the monarch as Head of the Church is now heretical. Possibly this is why the firewood beneath Forest contains a sizeable wooden statue of the Welsh St Derfel, removed from the church at Llanderfel in north Wales. It is at this time that the churches of England and Wales are being despoiled. The statues of saints and the Virgin Mary are being removed, and shrines destroyed. A statue of Forest can be found on the south wall of the church of St Etheldreda in Ely Place, Holborn.

The attack on church statues and shrines leads Henry to direct an attack on London’s popular spirituality by taking on the power of a long-dead Londoner – St Thomas Becket. Henry issues a proclamation to ‘unsaint’ Becket and to obliterate his cult. Becket has for a long time been challenging St Paul for the hearts of Londoners. After all, Becket was a Londoner, being born on Ironmonger Lane, which was more than could be said for St Paul. He is featured on London’s Great Seal, and has a chapel on London Bridge itself for pilgrims heading down to his shrine at Canterbury.

Dated 16 November 1538, the proclamation orders that Becket’s shrine in Canterbury is to be torn down and broken up, and his bones burnt. (Hearing the news of the destruction of Becket’s shrine, the horrified Pope excommunicates Henry on 17 December.)

Henry orders also that all instances of Becket’s name are to be obliterated from books, as can be seen in the account of the translation of his relics in the Stowe Breviary (written circa 1322-25). Soon most public representations of Becket have been destroyed, along with the chapel to Becket on London Bridge, and in 1539 his image is removed from the City seal.

This is however more than just Henry asserting his authority. When Henry II made Becket Lord Chancellor in 1155, the new appointee proved a loyal servant to the king. However, when appointed Archbishop of Canterbury in 1162, Becket changed allegiance, being now as loyal to the church as he had been to the king. His opposition to Henry II’s attempts to impose his authority on the church and to sideline the influence of the Pope makes him too much of a challenge for Henry VIII nearly four centuries later.

1538 however is a turning point in Henry’s plans. It is a popular error that Henry VIII made England a Protestant country. This was achieved during the reign of his son Edward VI. Henry died a good Catholic – in his own eyes at least. Though 1537 saw him seeking diplomatic relations with the Protestant Schmalkaldic League of Germanic states, this is largely the doing of Thomas Cromwell. It is Cromwell’s hope of an alliance with a Protestant state that leads to the disastrous marriage to Anne, daughter of the Duke of Cleves, in 1540.

The bitter disappointment of his marriage to Anne, and the humiliation of the annulment proceedings, allow Henry to be influenced by Cromwell’s enemies. Soon Henry’s eye has been caught by Catherine Howard, niece of Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk. The Duke is a devout Catholic, and an enemy of Cromwell. Soon Cromwell is condemned for treason, without a trial, and on 28 July 1540 he is beheaded on Tower Hill; along with him die the hopes of church reform in England under Henry VIII.

On the same day Henry marries Catherine, his fifth queen and the niece of Cromwell’s enemy. Never again does Henry allow anyone to get as close to him as were his two right-hand men, Thomas Wolsey and Thomas Cromwell. The political expediency which caused him to tear his country in half now means that in his last years Henry has done with all that, as he begins to court an alliance with the Holy Roman Emperor.

]]>Christopher Wren crosses the Atlantichttp://footprintsoflondon.com/2017/05/christopher-wren-crosses-the-atlantic/
Wed, 31 May 2017 20:53:12 +0000http://footprintsoflondon.com/?p=5984 As part of the London Festival of Architecture, Jen Pedler will be running her new walk Once There Was a Church which recounts the stories of how the remnants City of London churches connect the past to the present.

You can join Jen’s walk on the 7th and 18th June (booking details are here), but as little taster she tells the fascinating story of the posthumous Atlantic crossing of one of our most celebrated architects.

Today only the footprint of the little church of St Mary Aldermanbury, just behind Guildhall in the City, remains. It was destroyed twice in the two Great Fires of London. After the 1666 fire it was rebuilt by Christopher Wren and after the second, during the Blitz of 1940, it was rebuilt again – but not in London.

What became known as the ‘Second Great Fire of London’ was the firestorm caused the incendiary bombs dropped by the German Luftwaffe in almost 12 hours of continuous bombing during the night of 29/30th December 1940. Firefighting efforts were hampered by a lack of water; there was an exceptionally low tide making it difficult to obtain water from the river and the bombs fractured water mains, reducing the pressure. There was often little the firemen could do but watch the City burn.

Winston Churchill issued a message: “St Paul’s must be saved at all costs.” And it was.

One of the most iconic images of the war is Herbert Mason’s photograph of the dome of the Cathedral standing amid the smoke of the burning City. Wren’s masterpiece survived but much of the area around it was flattened and 13 other of his churches were destroyed that night.

An auxiliary fireman who watched some of these churches burn, including St Mary Aldermanbury, described hearing their bells falling down the towers and “hearing the organs burn, because the hot air blowing through the organ pipes almost sounded as if the poor old organs were shrieking in agony in their destruction.”

No doubt this fireman shared their pain as he was organ builder Noel Mander; some of the organs he heard in their death throes were his own. He is most noted for rebuilding the organ in St Paul’s in the 1970s but in the immediate post-war period he worked on the restoration of organs in churches that were to be rebuilt, often using salvaged parts from organs in churches that were slated for demolition.

One church on the demolition list was St Mary Aldermanbury. But, once again, Winston Churchill saved the day.

On a visit to the USA in 1946 he had been invited to visit Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri where he gave an address – ‘Sinews of Peace’ – in which he famously introduced the phrase ‘iron curtain’ which came to define the Cold War era. In the 1960s the director of the college, inspired by an article in LIFE magazine about war damaged, soon to be demolished Wren churches, suggested that one could be imported and rebuilt in Fulton to serve as a Churchill memorial and also the college chapel.

So St Mary Aldermanbury was dismantled and reconstructed in what the Times newspaper referred to as “Perhaps the biggest jigsaw puzzle in the history of architecture.” It now stands at the college in all its original Wren glory with the National Churchill Museum beneath it.

None of the interior had survived the bombing but it has been recreated much as it would have been originally. Of course, it needed an organ and who better to build it than Noel Mander who had watched the church burn back in the Blitz; just one of the many fascinating connections in this story of Christopher Wren crossing the Atlantic.

]]>Mandate to Rule; a series of “election specials”http://footprintsoflondon.com/2017/05/mandate-to-rule-a-series-of-election-specials/
Wed, 03 May 2017 19:45:50 +0000http://footprintsoflondon.com/?p=5923Theresa May has called a snap election in search of a mandate for… well, whatever it is she wants a mandate for (she may yet let us know among the Lynton Crosby-inspired parroted soundbites), so we at Footprints of London towers thought we would call our own “snap theme week” with a series of walks with a political bent in the week leading up to the big day.

Our lords and masters seeking our opinion on which of them and precisely how they should rule is, of course, a relative newcomer in historical terms; it is, after all, less than 100 years since the first election with a genuinely representative franchise.

So while we will cover some significant names and events from this more recent period, we will also look back to the years prior to that to explore how political power has been grabbed, stolen, fought over, violently attacked, entrenched and generally abused in the years before “fair” elections.

To join us on any of the walks click any of the links below, or look out for the Mandate to Rule logo on our June walks list.

A little taster of what you can expect:

Amber kicks us off with two walks on Friday June 2nd. First up in the morning is Winston Churchill – The British Bulldog, a personal portrait of arguably our greatest ever Prime Minister which explores his successes, struggles, family life and, of course, his enduring legacy.

Amber returns later the same day with Gunpowder Treason and Plot which not only recounts the detail of the infamous attempt to blow up Parliament, but is also a fun and informative walk through other memorable political events of the 17th and 18th centuries.

Mark is next up on the afternoon of Saturday 3rd June with Tracing the Tudors: The King’s Brexit which tracks down the London locations that tell the stories of Henry VIII’s own version of Brexit and the consequences for the characters who found themselves on the wrong side of his whims as we split from the Roman church.

Jack is back on the afternoon of Sun 4th June with The Battle That Won the War: Churchill versus the Cabinet, another look at the great man’s enduring legacy but this time from the very specific perspective of the crucial internal battle he fought with his own cabinet to stamp his much-needed authority on our war strategy.

On Monday 5th June, Jen enters the fray with The Stuarts: from Divine Right to Constitutional Monarchy which recounts the story of the Stuarts’ turbulent journey through conspiracy, civil war, execution, abdication and revolution and the struggles between King and Parliament over who should have the mandate to rule.

Dave is next up on the afternoon of Tuesday June 6th with The Seat of Power, the story of how Westminster, the cradle of one of the world’s great democracies, was the creation of generations of monarchs and evolved out of kings and regicides, democracy and terrorism.

On the morning of Thurs June 8th Dave presents The Price of Conscience, an exploration of the connections in The City of London connected with Henry VIII’s establishment as Supreme Head of the English church and the price paid by those who chose not to have their conscience suppressed.

Mark brings our mini-series to a close on June 8th with Pomp and Power: Election night special!, a light-hearted early evening jaunt around Whitehall to catch the buzz on election night sprinkled with fun stories such as the dodgy double-dealer after whom the world’s most famous political street is named and the man who won three by-elections from prison, only to have the result overturned each time by the irate King who had put him there.

Hopefully a bit of something for everyone!

So you never know, no matter how tired you are of the current political classes, once you hear of some of the privations our predecessors had to endure, you may yet conclude that you have in fact “never had it so good”!

We look forward to seeing you on the walks.

]]>Walking the Walbrookhttp://footprintsoflondon.com/2017/03/walking-the-walbrook/
Wed, 08 Mar 2017 12:10:40 +0000http://footprintsoflondon.com/?p=5879To coincide with the Museum of London’s current free exhibition of archaeological finds from the river Walbrook, Tina Baxter will be running her Walbrook where art thou? walk on Saturday 25th March. As the walk starts at the museum, you can take in this last chance to see the exhibition (it closes on the 26th March) before joining her to trace the route of the Walbrook to the Thames and hear the fascinating stories of its pivotal role in London’s history. Booking details here.

As a little taster, Tina shares her enduring interest in this most evocative of London’s lost rivers.

My fascination with the lost river Walbrook never wanes, the extraordinary finds during the excavation of the Bloomberg Headquarters site became known as the ‘Pompeii of the North’, wonderfully preserved in the wet conditions of the ancient riverbed.

The term “river”, however, has always been something of a misnomer as from what has been discovered it would have been more likely to be termed a stream – albeit a deep one.

The water it supplied from the Roman establishment of Londinium provided a means for industry to develop on its banks. It also became the dumping ground for many artefacts until its disappearance, covered over, as early as the 1500’s, mainly due the stink and the need for land reclamation and removal of ‘smelly’ industries, to the East of London. The depth of the exploration has confirmed its course, depth and width.

The banks of the Walbrook were weak and the Romans strengthened them by using overlapping planks called revetments. The planks themselves are interesting as they were often remains of ships and ‘clinker’ type boats, this has led to the mistaken impression that larger vessels could reach almost up to where Queen Victoria is today, when in fact it was only recycling of timbers

The small exhibition at the Museum of London is dedicated the tools and implements of manufacture found during various archaeological digs. The labels mention the Walbrook, ‘middle’ and ‘lower’ numerous times, they also give an indication of the many industries in the ancient city. Also, many of the items may have come from further afield, lost, dumped in, or swept down the Walbrook.

There is much more to come over the next few years as the finds are sifted through, preserved and then presented to us by the Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA). We already know the wax tablets, of which there are many. Endless pairs of shoes, the leather preserved in the waterlogged layers. Gold coins, amulets, pagan tokens and much more, as well as the site of the Temple of Mithras which will be presented to us once again in the purpose-built museum on the site.

The walk introduces you to the ‘middle’ and ‘lower’ course of the Walbrook, but also enlightens you to its source, the course and its demise.

]]>Charlie Chaplin’s Kenningtonhttp://footprintsoflondon.com/2017/03/charlie-chaplins-kennington/
Thu, 02 Mar 2017 11:30:13 +0000http://footprintsoflondon.com/?p=5871Michael Duncan talks about Charlie Chaplin’s London, which features in new walk looking at art and entertainment in Lambeth, which has its debut on March 4th

Everyone knows Charlie Chaplin.

“Iconic” is one of the laziest words used by writers when they seek to describe something or someone. But it applies to Chaplin. The little tramp, in the bowler hat with the toothbrush moustache and odd walk. Recognised even today virtually anywhere in the world.

Whilst the only legitimate child of the Chaplin family, he still managed to forge a reputation for being a bit of a bastard in how he behaved at the peak of his stardom and what he expected from people and women in particular. There were messy divorces, accusations of abuse, bullied co-stars, badly treated children, miserliness, depressions and rages.

But both these aspects of Chaplin, the man and the movie star owe a lot to his upbringing in London, and Kennington in particular.

Kennington was Charlie Chaplin’s manor.

Although born on East Street just off Walworth Road, Charlie Chaplin spent most of his childhood on Kennington Road, moving from flat to flat either with his alcoholic father or mentally unstable mother slipping further and further into poverty.

Kennington Road forms part of the M23 to Brighton and runs from Westminster Bridge Road to the Oval. The annual London to Brighton vintage car race chugs down here every year.

Today it’s the home of MPs as well as a fair smattering of arty and media types. But when Chaplin was a boy it had all the attributes of a slum. Most of the grand houses that line it had been converted into squalid flats and rooming houses and it was home to breweries, pickle factories and worse, tanning plants.

But smatterings of relative wealth remained. Some of the houses were still intact and pubs such as The Tankard on Kennington Road (now a Grand Union burger restaurant) gave young Chaplin an insight into a better more glamorous life. It was there that he would be captivated by glimpses of vaudeville stars “dressed in chequered suits and grey bowlers” having a drink before Sunday lunch. He set his heart on being like them.

Pubs figured large in Charlie’s young life. The Queen’s Head on Black Prince Road was run by his uncle and he often used to wander over to amuse his friends by mimicking a strange man who used to collect pennies in exchange looking after cabbies’ horses. Rummy Binks was an odd looking chap. He wore trousers that were far two big for him and had an odd waddling. walk. He was easy to ridicule and was major influence on the appearance of the “little tramp”.

But pubs were at least in part a cause of the poverty facing the young Charlie.

Opposite what is now the Imperial War Museum there’s a pub called the Three Stags. It’s still one of the busiest in Kennington. Charlie would walk past it often but hardly ever looked in. But one day he would. There, sitting in the corner was his father, who had split up from his mother. He beckoned him in and for once showed genuine affection to his son. But the sight of his father was appalling. Charles senior, sat bloated, a drink in his hand suffering from the final stages of cirrhosis of the liver. It was the last time the eleven year old Charlie would meet him. He would die shortly afterwards in St Thomas’s Hospital.

(But Charles Chaplin, Senior, had once been a well paid music hall entertainer, and had appeared at most of London’s top venues, including the Canterbury on Westminster Bridge Road. On stage he was an elegant chap in a top hat with a walking cane in one hand and a glass of champagne in the other. He would sing songs of everyday life in his fine baritone voice. But music halls such as the Canterbury made much of their money from selling drink. And part of the attraction would be for audience members to mingle, drink and chat with the performers after the show. A practice led to Chaplin Senior’s slide into alcoholism and early death at the age of 37.)

His father’s death, and his mother’s descent into madness pushed Charlie further into poverty.

But despite the squalor of his childhood in Kennington he would still come back, when he was the most famous film star in the world. Sometimes he would be noticed, and there would be a huge commotion. Other times he would manage to slip over the river from the Savoy or the Ritz and spend an evening re-tracing the footsteps of his childhood.

He could never lose sight of who he was and where he came from. Kennington was home.

Hollywood should be grateful for the influence it had on one of its biggest ever stars. A gratitude many of the people he worked with and lived with would perhaps find difficult to share.